Victims of the Haunt

Here’s a first look at the photos we took:

It had to come down…

I guess it was inevitable… it had to come down.  But it was still sad.  Here’s a time lapse of taking down the haunted house after the trick or treaters left.

 

Plenty of Trick or Treaters

I talk with people and they seem to lament the fact that trick or treating is dying.  I don’t see it.

A number of people told me they had no one at their door.  Others said they had one or two.  Yet we had over 400 go through our yard haunt this year.  What’s the deal?

Part of it is competition.  Churches, civic groups, and others are all trying to convince parents that trick or treating is unsafe.  It’s not.  The whole idea that it is somehow unsafe makes me crazy.  There are no sexual predators waiting to snatch children into their homes.  Despite the urban myths, there are no razor blades in apples or candy laced with poison.  And airports around the world statistically never find tampered candy with their scanners.

The whole idea that trick or treating is unsafe is based on irrational fears, and as a result there are neighborhoods with little activity.  Meanwhile, the ones that are active grow, as parents drive to drop of children in them.  There were multiple hayrides passing by our haunt as groups of kids visited the neighborhood.  Clearly people want to trick or treat….

So we at Weatherly Manor thank the hundreds that came by for having the guts to buck the growing paranoia.  And we promise, the pictures will be coming soon.

Halloween 2010

Many thanks to everyone who visited our haunt tonight.  We had a great turn out and despite multiple technical difficulties, we managed to get through the night with plenty of screams and terror.

To those coming here to look for pictures, I promise they will be here soon.  As will a complete report of the season.  This blog has been ignored lately, but we’ll get this year wrapped up.

Your haunters,

Jim and Mike.

Can it really be almost Halloween?

Wow, where has the month gone?  Well, I’ve had a rough month already, and it seems that I just didn’t get around to doing anything for the Haunt this year.  It’s still going up, but structurally it’s going to be identical to last year’s haunt.  No new scares.  Well, okay, there are new scares, but nothing really spectacular. Not like we planned.

But at least the Haunt is going up.  Twice.  With some changes possible the second time.  We’ll just have to wait and see what happens as the weekend progresses.

Welcome to Weatherly Manor

As haunted attractions go, Weatherly Manor is quiet minor.  Doesn’t keep Coztumer and I from enjoying it, or working hard on it.  Last year was the best year for Weatherly Manor to date.

Coztumer and I built Weatherly Manor from the ground up.  We stole, borrowed and even purchased everything in Weatherly Manor over the last three years.  The Manor started in the back of my truck and is today a freestanding contraption of daunting size.

Okay, it’s still tiny, but it takes more than a day to set up.

As it exists today, which is to say as it existed for Halloween 2008, it only had two rooms with a relatively simple scare in each room.  The front facade is a 15 foot wide 14 foot high “haunted house” that patrons enter through.  Once inside, the guests get an introduction to Weatherly Manor, including a visit from a ghost that “attacks” through a drop panel.

From there, they enter a “dot room,” which is one of the simpler special effects that a haunted attraction can build.  It seems to be quiet effective if the screams we got last year are any indication.

And that’s pretty much it, but with just two people running it, that’s pretty much all we could handle anyway.  This year we intend to add to the effect by automating the scares (and changing the surprise in the dot room) so that the two of us can increase the ambiance by being roving actors to the whole event.  Lots will change on the outside of the haunt, things that guest shouldn’t see but will make a huge difference in the way they interact with the Haunt itself.

All the while we are making notes and preparing to pitch the idea as a fundraiser to a local theater group for 2010.

So this is where you can read about our attempts to get Weatherly Manor updated for 2009 and moved to bigger and better digs in 2010.  Whatever happens, it should be a humorous story.  We’ll just have to wait and see.